Abstract Detail

Cryptantha (Boraginoideae, Boraginaceae) is a genus of approximately 200 species of annual or perennial flowering plants, having an amphitropic distribution in western regions of North and South America. Species of Cryptantha have been classified in various generic and infrageneric groups, but all have been united as one genus in most recent systems based on a presumed fruit apomorphy: nutlets having "ventral groove" attachment scar. Species and species complexes have largely been defined on plant duration, vestiture, floral cleistogamy, and nutlet sculpturing and heteromorphism. This is the first formal phylogenetic assessment of the genus as a whole. Molecular data from three DNA regions - nuclear ribosomal ITS and two intergenic chloroplast markers - were obtained for approximately 40 species of Cryptantha (belonging to most of the recognized infrageneric groups) and for several, close outgroup taxa. Both maximum parsimony and Bayesian inference methods were used to test the monophyly of and evaluate phylogenetic groupings within the genus. Preliminary data suggest that Cryptantha is non-monophyletic, with some monophyletic clades corresponding to previously defined genera or infrageneric groups. These results will likely lead to changes in generic and infrageneric classification. Ancestral state reconstruction, using parsimony and likelihood methods, were used to evaluate morphological character evolution.